Man, if this is how they treat him now, people are gonna be really shitty to Kishimoto if the next game isn't good.
Yeahhh what the guy initially said to him was kinda shitty. I just shared it anyway because I thought what Kishimoto had to say was interesting nonetheless. Man's a class act for putting together such a well thought out response to something he could very well just ignore or tell the guy to piss off about.
Wow, have I grown to respect Kishimoto. It takes metaphorical balls to say “I know the answer to {improve the next game}… If that is not possible, I will not take over as director.” Good on him for drawing a line in the sand. That twitter rando was being pretty rude tbh. I have to point out that of the 6 Sonic Games Kishimoto’s been involved in 3 (not 2) received good reviews at the time of the their initial release. Those games being: Secret Rings, Colors and Frontiers. There’s a lot with Secret Rings that hasn’t aged well, but in 07 that game received good reviews. Frontiers metacritic score is in the low 70s (exact # varies depending on consoles) but, for the most part, critics have viewed it more favorably than Forces.
I don't like Kishomoto as a director but I do have a lot of respect for how he conducts himself online with fans. Especially in the instance of that post. A very perceptive amd self reflective post in response to a very rude and stupid person. The one thing I think you can say about Iizuka, Hoshino, Kishomoto et al is they clearly do care about Sonic and the fanbase. As much as I dislike the direction of Frontiers, I am happy Kishomoto has made a direction which resonates with so many fans and seeing how delighted he is over its impact.
I remember him once saying if Frontiers didn't turn out well, he may have quit game development altogether. Unfortunately I can't find the source for this, so if anyone else is able to find this that would be great. Regardless, he seems to understand that there was a lot riding on this game's success, and he definitely takes his job seriously. It's also nice to see such transparency from a game developer, especially one from a major studio. A game director answering random people's questions on Twitter, accepting feedback, and sharing development secrets (on a game that just recently released, even) is not something you see everyday. It's clear he cares about his craft and wants to make something great. Thankfully, I like Frontiers a lot, so I am very excited to see what's next. Cautious, but still excited.
I think what i want most from a follow up on frontiers, is something that carries over its gameplay ideas, in more sonic-esque asthetic, smaller, but more "stages", fighting traditional colorful eggman robots. etc etc etc
I can't imagine what it'd be like trying to do your job while random people on Twitter are sending you messages telling you that you suck. Like, I know people complain about Sonic Team and individual employees who work there online, but there's something so incredibly rude about messaging those complaints to them directly. I know celebrities can get a similar treatment, but they aspire to fame, and fame is a dual-edge sword. I don't really think Iizuka or Kishimoto aspire to be famous, just to make games. I've never been quite as wound-up about Sonic Team and their faults as many others, but learning what I know now about how Sammy treated Sonic Team and seeing how Sonic Team members conduct themselves on Twitter as people hurl insults at them unprompted has really increased my respect for them as professionals.
I guess it is just a part of any job where you produce a product with high visibility. Maybe I'm just biased. I'm a software dev myself, so it's easier to put myself in their shoes than the shoes of a celebrity, performer, or politician. Either way, that question was cringe, and Kishimoto did a great job and answered it in a super constructive way. Props.
It's "cool" in the sense that your little brother dressing up in a Dante costume and yelling swears running around the house while your parents are out is "cool". Shadow cocks an M4 like a shotgun and mock kills Sonic the Hedgehog. It's beyond silly.
There are some things that are so stupid from trying to be cool that they somehow... manage to still be cool precisely because of how dumb it is, or at least, that's how I think. I unironically think that the Omochao Gun is the coolest gun in Shadow the Hedgehog and a hypotethical playable Shadow in Frontiers would have to have this shit
The game is brilliant, my main issue with the game was its pacing. Getting the key's from the portals in the latter sections really killed the flow (for me) Otherwise the game was awesome and the best 3D Sonic game since Sonic Adv. Can't wait for the next one in a few year's time.
I recently got back to my last playthrough of Sonic Frontiers. It is still great fun! However, since this is my third time playing through its main story, I thought of fiddling around with the sliders for a bit. I've read that many people just crank them all up for max responsiveness. But honestly, isn't that just way too exhausting after a while? I mean, I did that too, but have you already tried setting starting speed, initial boost speed and bounce height to 0? It makes for a way more relaxing experience (imo), especially when you're already familiar with the islands. And it works great too, because the steering sensitivity is still on max value. I didn't fine-tune it or anything, just thought it gives the game an interesting spin. Any recommendations as of late for the slider settings?
I like playing with the initial boost speed and starting speed low, and the acceleration middling, but I can't have them at zero. Makes Sonic feel like he's responding to the stick half a second late. Bounce height is always at max though, they shouldn't have even needed a slider for it. Being able to fling yourself around is just too good, it genuinely saved this game in some ways.
re: Hyper Sonic discourse Eggman has literally been clowning on Super Sonic for 15 years now. The modern games' settings and stakes have done more than enough to justify his existence by accident. I see no reason for Frontiers 2 to not have both forms be fully playable. Not to say I don't see it as too much to expect from Sega when we still don't even have fully playable Super Sonic in 3D, just that I don't think excuses have to be made for Hyper not being around. It's just typical unnecessary Sega weirdness or more specifically this lame idea they sporadically run with that everything after Sonic 2 is canon-optional. Still kinda baffles me that Frontiers just gives you Sonic.cfg. It's so weird to suddenly have official bare access to all the raw values like it's a foss fangame or something, especially after being forced with such stiflingly few options for the whole boost era for so long. I'm kinda for it despite how lazy it is but then I remember your changes don't apply in Cyberspace like come on Sega just let me like one of your weird design decisions.
Super Sonic was in Generations, but he was dogshit in that game because Super Sonic drained 2 rings a second, boosting drained rings even faster, and Classic Sonic's super abilities were damn near nonexistent. I can't remember if Lost World had him, but Forces did as a DLC. I'm pretty sure Sonic Colours was the best thing we had to a good fully playable 3D Super Sonic.
